I Could Kiss You for Hours
by allatraka
Summary: A collection of drabbles of Westallen kisses.
1. Rocky Kiss

"TEN!"

And the entire stadium erupted. Iris had gone the distance. She'd lasted ten rounds against the light-weight champion of the college division, and she was still standing on her own two feet, while her opponent was being held up by her team. Iris hadn't won, but she'd done even better—she'd proven to the world, and to her father, and to herself, that she was someone worth believing in.

Sweat poured down her face and stung the pulsing cut over her left eye. Wisps of her hair stuck to the back of her neck and her temples. Her heart was pounding, her knees and feet ached. She knew she had bruises against her ribs and on her abs. She could only see out of one eye. But through the pain and through the absolute elation, through the cheers and hugs and shouts of her trainer and her cutman and the rest of her team, Iris had one thought on her mind—

"Barry!" she shouted. The yearning in her for him was sudden and fierce. It made her stagger. "Barry!" She turned round and round in the ring—"You went the distance against the greatest! How does it feel—" there was a mic shoved in her face. "What? What? Barry!—I don't know, man, it feels great—" she pushed the mic and the person holding it away, "Barry!" All around her were people and bodies and lights, now the announcer was telling the world who she was, it was all a spinning, dazzling mass, but all she wanted was—

"Iris!" Through the crowd Iris saw him, tall and wide-eyed and grappling his way to her. She reached her arms out for him. "Barry! Barry!" and he was there, like he always was for her, his smile wide and just for her, his arms thrown around her to lift her up against him and twirl her around. "You did it!" he cried, "You did it! You were so good, Iris! You were perfect!"

Iris clasped him tight with all the strength she had left in her, and then she held him back by the shoulders to take him in. She asked the first question that came to her. "Hey, Barry, where's your bowtie?" The red one she'd given to him, that he wore for good luck, it was gone, and she could see his button down shirt buttoned all the way up.

Barry was looking at her with wonder and with piercing joy. "Iris, I love you!" he had to cry it loud for her to hear. "I love you!" and the kiss he gave her was so bright and so good, she knew that this was all real—this was her victory, and he was her man.


	2. Good Doctor Kiss

"Barry, my ice cream's melting," Iris laughed, pulling away, and she gave his chest a little thump where she was holding onto his lapel. She took a quick little mouthful off the side of her ice cream cone.

"Yeah?" he said. He wiped a bit of ice cream from the corner of her mouth and sucked it off his thumb. Then he took the hand that was holding her ice cream cone in his, and took one, two, three generous licks of mint chocolate chip.

"Hey!" Iris cried. Barry grinned wide at her, as though he'd done something to be proud of. "Come here, you thief," she said, and pulled him back to her for another kiss.


	3. The Innocent Man - Heartbreakers Kiss

The first time he'd kissed her, it had been strictly business. She was his mark. What he'd known about her then was this:

Each night she took approximately two minutes to fish her keys out of her purse before she opened the door to the house she shared with her father and brother because she was usually on the phone with her friend and colleague, Linda Park. She worked at the largest paper in Central City, and she'd recently gotten a promotion because of her months-long coverage of the mayor's close relationship with the city's police force. She had a schedule: a morning run before her father and brother were awake, coffee at Jitters, a solid 11 to 12 hours at work, and home in time for late night tv. She only had two credit cards to her name, both of which she had saved for emergencies, and student debt that would last her until she was well past middle age. She hadn't had a date in over a year.

Her name was Iris West.

She was the daughter of the man who had landed his father in prison, the man who had again and again kept his father from getting parole, and so was responsible for his dying in a six-by-eight foot cell, with no privacy and no dignity.

The first time he'd kissed her he'd kept his eyes open as she curled her fingers in the fabric of his shirt, and then laid her head against his chest with a sigh.

What he knew about her now was this:

She cried alone, because she didn't like when people knew that she was upset; she didn't want to be a burden. When she was genuinely excited about something, it animated her entire being—she actually clapped and jumped up and down. When she smiled, it brightened up the entire room, and it made you—made him—want to smile with her, too, made him want to give her reason to smile. When she gave herself over to him, months after he'd 'accidentally' bumped into her at the supermarket, the longest con he'd ever worked on, it overwhelmed him, because no one had ever trusted him that much, no one had ever looked at him like she did, her eyes so dark and earnest, and said "I believe in you," with so much certainty that he believed in himself, too.

He knew that she made him happy. She liked to stroke her hands through his hair when they were in bed together. When she invited him over for dinner, so he could meet her father and brother, he found he wanted to be the nice man she thought she was bringing home. He wanted to be that Barry, her Barry. When he looked across the table at her father and saw that the man didn't recognize him, that he didn't see the boy who'd begged him not to place handcuffs on his father again, that all he saw was an upstanding young man who was good enough for his daughter, it didn't feel like a victory. The hatred that had characterized every thought he'd ever had about Joe West was replaced with a kind of gratefulness to him for having such a daughter. It made him queasy. It made him angry at himself, now.

He knew his plan had worked. He knew she loved him. It pulled at an aching in him, a longing for her, even though she was right there, in his arms. He wanted her to know him—him, the real him, with the dead mother and the dead, convict father, and the life that had been bent on vengeance for so long. Could she love that? He knew he wanted to tell her things he really shouldn't, things that would let her know just how much of a bastard he was, and just how little he was worth any of her kindness or her care. She was doing exactly as he'd planned. He was the one who'd fucked up, who looked forward to hearing her voice and seeing her face and only wanted her to be happy, when the whole point had been to hurt her the way he was hurt, so her father would know that there was nothing he could do to protect those he loved, so her father could feel the same helplessness he'd had with him almost his whole life.

Now he kissed her with his eyes closed and said in his head what he didn't dare say out loud, "I love you, I love you, I love you, Iris."


	4. Baz Luhrmann Death Scene Kiss

The Flash is only faster than a speeding bullet if he can see it.

He didn't see it.

Iris did.

She didn't have a name to scream because he'd never told her his name. She'd asked, again and again, first out of curiosity, then out of flirtatiousness, and finally out of exasperation. "What do you want me to call you?" she'd said. He'd shrugged. "You're the one who came up with it," he'd said, "so call me what you named me."

When Iris saw one of the dozens of men he was facing off against pull the trigger, she didn't call out a name. Instead she screamed—a wordless, bottomless sound, torn from somewhere in her she hadn't touched before. Instead of speaking, Iris acted. She threw herself at the Flash, used her body to knock him out of the way. The bullet hit her instead.

"Iris!"

She'd never heard her name dressed in such tones before. Full of anguish and desperation and panic. The Flash screamed her name and the place was enveloped in his red lightning. Mere seconds and the men he'd been taking such care not to hurt before were splayed, haphazard bodies on concrete.

Iris had never realized before that she was made of flesh. Barry had told her once, "Do you know we're made of the same stuff that stars are made of? It's true, look," and then he'd gone off on a series of explanations about supernovas and atoms. He liked to make poetry out of science for her. Iris wasn't made of stars. She was made of muscle and bone and blood. She was made of pulp. The pain from the bullet spread from her gut, spread like her blood was spreading, warm, sticky on her skin, clinging to her clothes, dyeing them dark. Her pulse in her throat was thick and slow. Sweat slicked her forehead and neck. She could not control her body. The shock of the pain was so intense that she went rigid, then limp, and for moments all she could see was pure whiteness.

The Flash knew her name, even though all he'd ever called her was "Ms. West." He'd known her name even before their first meeting, when all he was to her was a hope burgeoning in her chest, a belief that decency and goodness were enough to make a person a hero; when all she'd wanted was to close the distance yawning between her and her best friend, and prove that she wasn't wrong to want more, to look for more, to grab fistfuls of the hope he brought her and open her palms to share it with the world.

Now his arms came around her. Now she felt his thighs beneath her. Now she felt him solid against her. He pulled her up, held her to his chest and his heart was beating hard and fast. His embrace was so familiar. It was warm and safe. His arms were so long. They reminded her of home. They reminded her of—

"No no no no no no nononononono," the word spilled from his mouth until it became nonsense. There were tears in his eyes. He was crying. Iris reached her hand up to touch the bit of his face that his mask left exposed, and his hand scrambled up to hold hers there against his skin. "Iris," he sobbed her name. And then he let her hand go, reached up and pulled his hood back.

Barry.

Barry with his honest eyes and open face, so precious to her. But no, it couldn't be. Because she would have known. Because he would have told her.

"Barry?" She could barely breathe, and his name came with pain.

"Iris please, please, I'm so sorry, please, Iris, don't leave me."

"Barry, please." She didn't know what she was asking.

"Anything, Iris."

There was anger in her, and there was heartbreak. But the pain overwhelmed it all. She wanted it to go away.

"H-hold me," she asked.

He did. He curled over her, tucked her head beneath his chin, rocked her to and fro. He was shaking, Iris could feel his tears on her face, but she could hardly feel her body anymore.

"Barry."

"Anything."

"Kiss me? Please?"

He did. First her forehead, then her cheek, then her eyelids, now closed. Then one last, trembling kiss on her lips that he let linger.


	5. Some Kind of Wonderful Kiss

Iris was bored, and a little irritated. She lay on her back on Barry's bed, legs propped up against the wall and crossed at the ankle. She leafed through her library copy of Emma, which she had to present to her AP English Lit class in a couple weeks, and played with the end of one of her braids. Her Grandma Esther had just left after a week-long visit, during which she'd insisted on combing her granddaughter's hair into thick, long cornrows.

Iris was in the thick of Emma's schemes for Harriet's love life and she bristled, more annoyed with the book now than she'd ever been the several times she'd read it before. She flipped it closed, and looked at Barry instead.

He was in something of a frenzy. He pulled one plaid shirt after another out of his closet and held each in front of him with the handle of the hanger poking his face. He stood in front of his mirror, staring at himself for minutes on end, frowning, squinting, and letting out a stream of unintelligible noises, before abandoning the shirts on a chair or on his bed or on the floor and rooting through his closet again.

Iris liked watching Barry. He had long limbs that he didn't quite yet know how to control, and little ticks and mannerisms that told a whole story of their own, alongside whatever he was saying. Like when he was talking about his independent study, which he was doing at the local branch of the state college because they didn't have the equipment he needed at their school, and his hands would flail about delightedly in front of him. Or when he'd done something to upset her, and he wanted to get back on her good side, and he would clasp his hands together and give a determined smile, his eyes wide and face totally open, as if he were saying, "Just tell me what I can do to make it better."

He'd changed so much in that last few years. He'd grown taller, and now she had to look up at him when they were standing face to face. He wasn't as angry as he used to be anymore, and didn't yell or slam doors behind him. He didn't try to bottle up his affection anymore, and hugged her dad for the simplest things, like making his favorite dinner. Her room was full of gifts from him, things he'd gotten her "Cause it reminded me of you," or "Cause I thought you'd like it," or "Just because."

He was…exactly what a boy should be. Kind, dependable, and not given to playing any of the bizarre games boys usually used to let a girl know they liked her. If she let herself, Iris knew, she could want something from Barry that would change everything they were to each other. But she wouldn't let herself. Iris had lots of friends, but very few confidants, and Barry was her closest, very best friend. She didn't want to have something that she couldn't tell him. If she could, she would take their friendship and stow it away in the small box full of her mother's jewelry she kept hidden in the desk of her bedside table, and take it out only to admire how it filled her up with joy. What they had was good, better than anything else she'd ever had, and she wasn't going to mess it up, the way she messed up so many things. She wasn't going to lose him.

Barry turned from the mirror to face her. "What about this?" he asked. He was holding up a shirt of almost neon blues and purples. Iris didn't remember letting him pick that out on any of their trips to the mall. "I don't know," she said, "it's a little, um, bright?"

Barry's shoulders slumped. "You don't think she'll like it?"

Iris made a face.

"Oh, don't do that," Barry said.

"Do what?" she asked innocently.

"That—that thing."

"What 'thing'?"

"That thing you do," Barry said, waving a hand in her direction, "whenever I talk about Becky."

Iris pouted and looked down at her nails. "I don't 'do' anything."

Barry sighed. "Iris, please, ok? Could you just—I don't know, support me in this? Please?"

Iris paused. She'd never thought of him and "Becky" as something to be supported. In the last few weeks, when Barry had started eating lunch with Becky instead of her, and when Iris would come home from basketball practice to find him sitting at the kitchen table finishing his homework with her, and when Iris had wanted to go shopping for a present for her dad's anniversary of making detective but Barry had been busy on the phone with Becky, Iris hadn't once thought that there was a "this" there.

She picked her words carefully, because she wasn't sure what she wanted to know. "Why do you like her?"

Barry twisted his fingers together and knitted his brow. He took a while to answer her. "She's pretty."

Iris snorted.

"That's not all!" Barry rushed to add. "She and I are both in astronomy club."

"So is Brock Macnamara!" Iris cried.

"And she likes me!"

"Lots of people like you, Barry!"

"No!" and he sounded so wounded that Iris sat up in his bed.

Barry shook his head at her. He turned to his side so he wasn't facing her and wrung his hands together.

"She isn't, like, freaked out by me," he said.

"What do you mean?" Iris asked quietly.

His voice was very soft as he answered her. "I mean besides you, there aren't that many people who talk to me. And she does. I—it's hard for me. To make friends, I mean. And she doesn't think I'm a—a freak."

Iris felt wretched. She frowned down at her lap. She didn't know if it was upcoming finals, or that she hadn't gotten her acceptance letter to her first choice college yet, or that she already missed having another woman in the house with her, but she couldn't understand why this was so hard for her. She'd never begrudged Barry anything before. She'd always wanted to give and share everything with him—her home, her family her friends. She didn't want to be the reason Barry's life was any smaller. She thought everyone should know how good he was, how kind and thoughtful and even funny, a lot of the time. She only wanted him to be happy.

Iris asked carefully, "You really like her, then?"

"I…do," Barry said, but it came out sounding like a question. Iris raised her brows at him. "I like her," he said with more conviction.

"And she makes you happy?"

"You make me happy, Iris. I just like spending time with her."

What? "What?" Iris said sharply.

Barry's hand flew to the back of his neck. "I just mean, I don't want you to make a big deal out of it or anything. I just don't want you…to…not like her…so obviously…" he trailed off.

"So then why are you so nervous, if it's not a big deal?"

"I've never been out on a date before. I don't know what to do!"

"Barry, if she likes you she won't care what you guys do."

"No, Iris, I know her, she has, like, standards."

Iris suppressed a grumble. How was she supposed to like this girl when she made Barry say things like that? Iris tried not to repeat to him what he'd told her when Evan Peters had asked her once why she wore sweats out to the movies, that she shouldn't be with someone who made her feel like she wasn't good enough for them as she was.

Instead she said, "Ok, tell me what specifically you're nervous about."

Barry opened his arms wide, gesturing at his room, and then let his arms drop down to his sides in defeat. Iris looked at the piles of clothes everywhere and giggled.

"Ok, that I can help you with." She marched over to his closet. "What are you guys doing?"

"Dinner and a movie," Barry said.

"A classic. Very nice, Allen." Barry beamed at her, and Iris suddenly felt a rush of giddiness.

"What are you going to see?" As she spoke to him she poked through his closet and walked about his room, picking up what he'd thrown on the floor, examining each item with a twist to her lips, and finally letting it drop back to its pile.

"The Horseman on the Roof. It's this old French movie that's playing at Indie House on Saturday. It's like a French Titanic, I think?"

Iris glanced at Barry. "French? So, with subtitles?"

"She can read, Iris," he said, exasperated. "She's the one who picked it out!"

"I'm worried about you!" Iris said with mocking indignation, and she threw a pair of socks at him. "You're the one who isn't taking a language."

Barry made a face at her and she stuck her tongue out at him.

"All right," Iris said. She'd finally put together an outfit out of the mess Barry had made. She pushed her copy of Emma to the side and laid out what she'd chosen on his bed.

"You really think she'll like this?" Iris had chosen what she liked best on Barry: one of the few shirts he had that actually fit him, and so brought out how wide his shoulders had become, and the pair of jeans he hadn't ever spilled anything on.

"If she has any taste—"

"Iris—"

"—and she does, since she's going on a date with you, then she will." She smiled triumphantly at Barry. "Ok, so what else?" She was determined to do everything she could to make sure Barry's date with…with this girl went well.

"Uh, I think, uh, that's it, actually."

Iris put her hands on her hips. "You're a terrible liar Barry."

He looked at her through his lashes, the way he did sometimes, the way that made Iris notice how long they were, and she realized that he was blushing. It made all the freckles on his face and neck stand out.

"I've," Barry cleared his throat, "I've never kissed anyone before."

What? But Iris didn't say it aloud. She frowned. How was that possible? Even if he'd never dated anyone before, and even if he was shy and bright and thoughtful, and so many of the things other boys weren't, there was no way he hadn't kissed anyone yet. And he was so cute, sometimes, most of the time, really. How could no one have kissed him yet?

Iris took in the way his blush had spread to the very tips of his ears, the way he kept his head down and fiddled with his fingers. He wasn't lying. A strange medley of feelings came over Iris then. She wanted to protect him, let him know there was no reason to feel embarrassed. But there was also something else in her, something harsher, darker, that struck her somewhere in her gut. She felt a possessiveness, and it mixed with a with a fluttering hope that bloomed in her. She thought, Mine, but she immediately stamped it out.

"…I…I could help you," Iris offered.

Barry chanced another look at her. "How?"

"Well…I could kiss you."

It took him a full minute to speak. "Oh, oh no, no no, that's not what I meant. I mean—no, I don't mean no as in 'no,' I mean 'no' as in 'you don't have to do that.'"

But Iris was already stepping up to him. She stood so close that she had to tilt her head back to look up at him, and she saw him gulp. But he didn't step back. Instead his eyes travelled down her face and back up to her eyes, like he was taking her in. The way she sometimes did with him, when she was sure no one was looking.

"I'm ok with it," Iris said, "if you're ok with it. It's just a kiss. And it'll help you with…"

"…Becky," Barry breathed out.

"Yeah."

He was wearing the glasses he used whenever he was reading one of the thick scifi paperbacks he liked, the ones with really small type. Iris knew he was almost done with Dune. He only ever wore them at home. They were almost at the tip of his nose, and with her finger Iris pushed them up. Barry blinked at her. He was looking at her lips. His own were parted. Iris let herself have just one small, indulgent thought: he's perfect for kissing.

"Just imagine I'm her for a second," Iris said. She could say it at almost a whisper because they were standing so close.

"Becky, right," Barry said.

"And then," Iris lightly took his hands, "just put your hands on my—on her hips," and she placed them there.

"And then she'll probably—" Iris brought her arms up around Barry's shoulders. She had to stand on her tiptoes to reach, which made her lean flush against him. And without her telling him, Barry did exactly what she wanted. He brought his arms around her waist to hold her against him, so they were embracing.

"And then.." Iris said, and she kissed him.

Kissing Barry was like everything else with Barry. He opened up a big, wide space inside of her, and it scared her, even as she took pleasure in the total freedom it afforded her. It was like she was hurtling headlong into something, and she didn't know what that something was.

Barry didn't kiss her like it was an experiment, or a trial run for someone else. He kissed her like he wanted to kiss her, kissed her like he wanted—her. He was all warm and solid against her, and he nipped at her bottom lip, then sucked the little pain away. He was just the right amount of greedy, leaning over her like he wanted more of her, like he wanted to give her all of himself, and he splayed a hand against her back to help hold her up. Iris thrust her hands in his hair and held him there.

She made a sound into his mouth and that's when she knew she had to pull away. His eyes were still closed when she did. He arced after her, bending to reach her, and his lips were wet and parted. His eyes fluttered open and there was a tender, keening look in them. If Iris listened to that look she'd kiss him again, and more. She'd take all of Barry for herself and there wouldn't be any left for anyone else. She scared herself with that thought.

Iris pulled herself out of their embrace, and Barry's arms hovered open in the air where she'd just been, as if he wanted to reach out for her. His glasses were just a bit askew. He looked drunk and pleased. Had she done that? Could she make him look like that?

Iris gulped down a breath. "You're good," she stammered out, "I mean you're fine. You can kiss. Stefanie, I mean Britney, I mean Becky, fuck—" Iris took another deep breath, "Becky won't have any complaints."

She stumbled out of Barry's room, forgetting her book and her notes and why she would make such a silly proposal in the first place. She rushed to her room and closed the door with a snap—to Barry Allen and all the things she didn't let herself want from him.


	6. Sleeping Beauty Kiss

Some days Barry was so tired he didn't even bother to change into his civilian clothes before heading home. One such morning, early enough that it would be some hours before any alarm clocks would go off, he sagged against their door, fatigue in his shoulders and thighs, and frowned when he saw that he didn't have to turn the key in the lock to open it. He'd told Iris before that he didn't think she should leave the door unlocked for him; he came back late so often, and he didn't like the thought of her alone, without even this smallest of defenses. But he couldn't help the smile that came to his face, or how good it made him feel, to know that she'd left it like that thinking of him, and that when he closed the door behind him he could lock it and make his way to her.

In just a few hours he would have to head to work, the one that actually paid—for the house and the groceries, and one day for the diapers and trips to the doctor and the college tuitions. But right then he climbed carefully into the bed he shared with Iris, making sure not to wake her. Iris slept on soundly. Barry bent over her and pressed two kisses against her belly. One for Dawn and one for Don. Then he pulled his gloves off and settled behind her. He brushed his lips against her shoulder in a silent greeting and gently lay a hand on her waist. He was still unsure of how to touch her, even though she was showing now. He was still scared of hurting her, even though when he'd first told her this Iris had laughed and told him that if she could carry twins then she could pretty much take anything.

Barry hadn't wanted to have kids, for a lot of reasons. He wanted it too much, and that made him cautious. He didn't know what kind of a father he would be, if he could be as patient and kind as his own, or as caring and generous as Joe. He wanted to be good to them, to give them the kind of love he'd received. He was worried about what could happen to Iris. Pregnancy was always dangerous, and having twins only made it more so. They didn't know yet if their babies were metahumans. What would happen to Iris, if they were? Would it hurt her? Would he hurt her? The day she'd told him he'd started asking her every few minutes, "Are you all right? Are you ok?" and then, finally, "You don't have to do this. Not for me." But she'd squeezed his hand in hers and said, "I want this, Barry." Her confidence had been enough to reassure him.

But Barry had another lingering fear, one he didn't know how to tell Iris. He was scared he had the same destiny as his mother. He'd leave them one day, his wife and his kids, this family that was the world to him, that made him understand just how deep his love could go, and he didn't know what he could do to keep that from happening. The by-line had read "Iris West-Allen," and she was now, just like he was Barry West-Allen. But the headline Iris had written—would one day write—had said "disappeared." Each night Barry had to spend away from Iris, and now, away from little Dawn and Don, stopping a robbery at a gas station or keeping the police from giving a homeless man too much grief, the fear grew in him. He'd learned that he wasn't supposed to grow up with his mother's love, and that no amount of wanting it to be different would merit changing that. He didn't want his own children to have to learn the same.

Iris shifted in her sleep, turned so that she was facing him. Barry moved his hand and placed it on her stomach. She'd told him she'd felt them kicking, but Barry had yet to. Looking at her, with the covers kicked off because she was always so hot now, and her nightshirt a little too tight across her chest and stomach with how big she'd gotten, Barry thought again how beautiful she was. He always told her she was beautiful, but he hadn't really found the words to tell her what he meant. What he meant was that he celebrated every day knowing that she loved him. He meant that she'd saved him, and that he didn't regret a single day since he'd made the decision to come back to her, and let go of his childish dream of having the world exactly as he wanted it. What they had was good. It filled him with hope for Iris and their children. If he, of all people, stubborn and willful and strangely possessive of his loss as he was, could find a way to be truly happy, even as he missed a life he never had, then maybe he didn't have to worry about them so much. Iris and Dawn and Don, they could be happy, too, without him. He wanted that for them. He wanted it more than anything. He thought of his mother, and he knew she was proud of what he'd managed to do—found someone he loved, who loved him in return, and built a life with her.

Delicately, Barry ran the backs of his fingers over Iris's cheek. He reached over and gave her a chaste kiss on her lips. Iris's eyes fluttered open at that, and her face broke into a smile at the sight of him. And her smile reminded him that he was there, with her, and no matter where he went, he'd always find his way back to her.

"Hey," she murmured.

"Hey."

"Missed you."

"I'm sorry. I'm here now," he said, and as she scooched over as close as she could with her belly in between them to embraced him, "and I'm not going anywhere."

"Promise?"

Barry kissed her forehead. "Promise."

*  
Some days Barry was so tired he fell asleep in their bed with his suit still on, with only his mask down and his gloves off, so Iris could feel his skin when he touched her. That morning, as sunlight filtered into their bedroom, Iris watched him with a smile on her face, trying not to giggle at his soft snores and the way his face twitched as he dreamed. His hair was all messy, from the bed and from his hood, and she could tell right where his mask came to a stop, because his cheeks were smudged with some soot right underneath. He needed a shower and some Chapstick, and to change into some clean clothes, but he was still beautiful, her Barry, with his long lashes and thick brows, with all the worries he tried to keep to himself, and with the fierce love he had for her. He would have to get up soon, probably after she'd already left for work, but she didn't wake him. She kissed him instead, one quick, silly kiss right at his hairline, because she liked knowing that she could kiss any part of him she wanted, and then a softer, longer one on his lips, a promise of her own for him to keep with him throughout his day.


	7. Can't Hardly Wait - MSCL Kiss

"Hey, you're that kid, right?" **  
**

"Huh?"

Barry was at his locker, one knee propped against the frame and holding up his backpack so he could stuff the books he needed for his next class into it. The hallway was bustling around him, loud with students calling out to one another and locker doors banging shut. He wasn't really paying attention to the person talking to him. He had to get to his next class on time—it didn't matter how bright Mr. Patterson thought he was, if he was late again it would be a deduction from his final grade.

"You're that Iris kid, right?"

At her name Barry's head shot up. "I'm sorry?" he asked. The person in front of him was a boy about his age, though shorter. Better looking, too, Barry noted with a bit of annoyance, with a square jaw and blonde hair and a tan, even though there were still mounds of packed snow in the school's parking lot from the winter. He had the kind of arms boys were supposed to have, the kind Iris and her friends giggled over in her room when she came home from basketball practice, not all long and spindly like his. Barry had no idea who he was, had never spoken to him before, probably because he spent his time playing some kind of sport that required a high level of coordination, like lacrosse, or soccer or something, instead of making lists of his favorite lines by character from Deep Space Nine.

"Sorry, I mean you're that kid Iris is always hanging out with. Iris West?"

Barry thought that maybe he should be insulted that this guy didn't even know his name, and that it shouldn't make him feel so good only to be known as Iris's friend, but he smiled anyway. He could tell it was a dopey smile, wide and loose and a little higher on one side, and it probably just made him look goofier than he usually did, but that's how he always smiled when he thought of Iris. He ducked his head to hide it because he'd only recently realized what Iris made him feel was, and he didn't know yet how to carry that knowledge openly. He wanted to keep it to himself, keep that feeling safe, somehow.

"Um, I mean, yeah, I know her," Barry said. He tried not to sound cocky about it. He shouldered his backpack and shoved his locker shut. "Why?"

"Because," and the guy started following him as he made his way through the crowd, "I kind of need your help with her."

"My help?"

"Yeah, listen, what's your name?"

"Barry."

"Right, of course, Iris is always talking about you."

Barry almost tripped over a freshman in front of him. He couldn't hide his smile this time, and he couldn't keep the delight out of his voice when he asked, "She is?"

"Yeah, look," the guy had to almost jog to keep up with him, "since you two are so close, I was hoping maybe you could kind of help me with something."

"Something for Iris?"

"Yeah."

"What is it?"

"Well, you know prom?"

Barry bit back a groan. This always happened. A guy would have a crush on Iris, and instead of going to her, or going to one of her girlfriends, like Shawna or Linda, he would come to him. These guys always had rationales that made Barry cringe—he seemed more "approachable" than Iris did and they wanted to ask him if she really was as friendly as she seemed; they thought the reason Iris didn't date much was because of her dad and wanted tips on how to "get past" him; they wanted to know if he could get her to come to one of their games, so they could talk to her "on their own turf." He sometimes felt there was some kind of code that the other boys in his school had between them and held fast to, something that had to do with a similarity in how they were supposed to treat girls, and how they were supposed to talk and look and act, in order for it to be recognized that they were boys. But Barry didn't really know what that code was. It confused him, the things Iris's crushes said when they came to talk to him about her.

The worst thing, and one that came up uncomfortably often, was that they would think he was playing some kind of "long game," and that he wasn't really friends with Iris, that he was just biding his time until he could make his move, or something. They came to ask his permission to "step in," like there was a queue, and they were being courteous as they cut in front of him; or worse, they would ask if he'd "gotten close," if living with her "helped," if it got him some kind of special privileges that the other guys at school didn't have access to. When he told them how wrong they were, they would either look at him incredulously, or shake their heads with pity and utter something about how much the friend-zone sucked.

What they couldn't seem to understand was how lucky Barry felt to be Iris's friend. For him, she was his very best friend. He was comfortable around her in a way he wasn't around others, and yet he'd found that one of the pleasures of being so close to her for so long was in how their affection deepened and changed, so that even though they knew each other better than anyone else, they could still surprise each other. He liked the nights turned to mornings he spent talking to her, drifting from one subject to another without any pause, their voices growing hoarse with use until they couldn't keep their eyes open anymore; and he liked, too, the silences they shared between them, comfortable and inviting—nourishing, even, because those silences fed their thoughts and daydreams. He liked being there for all the mundane moments of Iris's life, like when she was bored, or studying for a test, or going to the mall, and he liked being there for the moments Iris celebrated, like when she won first place in their year's essay writing contest and got to visit the Library of Congress. He could tell her anything, everything, and nothing was too banal or too personal for her to hear. He liked her. He liked his time spent with her. And the best thing was, Iris felt the same about him.

"I'm not giving you her number," he said.

"Oh, no, that's not it."

"And I'm not going to ask her to prom for you."

"Dude, no, that's not it at all. We're already going together, to senior prom, actually. I'm Ethan, by the way, her date."

Barry stopped in the middle of the hallway, and the students behind them shot him dirty, impatient looks as they shoved past. The guy, Ethan, held out his hand, but all Barry could do was stare at him and say, "Oh."

He hadn't known Iris was going to prom with anyone. He'd thought maybe she was planning to go with a group of friends. But of course she wasn't. She was kind and popular and beautiful. Of course someone, some senior jock, would have asked her.

"Oh," Barry said again, and Ethan awkwardly took his hand away, let his arm hang by his side. And as Barry took him in, he realized who he was. He was Ethan Mariano, and he didn't play lacrosse. He played football. He was the starting running back for Central City High, and it was rumored he was so good he would get a full scholarship to Penn State. Barry knew this about him because he'd overheard Iris gushing over him with Shawna and Linda. They'd spent an entire afternoon talking about his stats, and they always used his full name, like he was an institution or something. So it wasn't just some random jock she was going with, but with someone she knew and liked.

"But it is prom that I need your help with, actually," Ethan said. "I don't need you to ask her for me, it's just—" he swung his backpack around and unzipped it, dug a couple of folded, crumpled papers out of it. "I kind of wrote something for her, to give to her. Cause I want prom night to be kind of romantic-like, you know? But I didn't want to do anything too cheesy. So I thought I'd write her a letter. And I was thinking, I was hoping, I mean, that you could look it over, maybe? Since you two are so close and all, and you probably know what she'd like to hear."

Barry was still processing the information that Iris, his Iris, well, not his really, but Iris-who-liked-to-tickle-him-when-he-was-being-mopey, Iris-who'd-been-to-every-science-fair-he'd-participated-in, Iris-who-always-stole-his-dessert, that Iris, was going to senior prom with future-NFL-star-Ethan-Mariano. That Ethan, seeing that Barry hadn't spoken another coherent word to him, took Barry's hand, placed his words to Iris in Barry's palm, and folded Barry's fingers over it. "I have to get to class, but I'll come find you tomorrow to see what you think, ok? I owe you big time, man."

Ethan probably got to class on time, but Barry didn't manage to make it to his until well after the bell had rung. By then he was in such a foul mood that he didn't even care about the pointed look Mr. Patterson gave him.

* * *

It wasn't that he had been planning to ask Iris to junior prom himself. He'd looked at tuxes, and at how much it would cost to rent a limousine, and his stomach would twist up in knots whenever he thought of what Iris would look like in a fancy dress, if it would be too much if he got her a necklace to wear as well as a corset, or if he should just be normal and only get her flowers, but he'd never thought of asking her. He'd just assumed that they would be there together, and that maybe, if his limbs would cooperate, he could dance with her, and leave his hand on her back or her hip, whichever she liked better, without it getting all sweaty. He'd even thought that afterwards they could go to the local diner Iris liked out by Route 32, with Shawna and Linda and their dates, since Iris probably wouldn't want to go to any of the parties, with all the drinking they had and how Joe would be on her all night about it. But Iris had other plans. He knew that now.

In class what Barry wanted to do was scrunch up the papers Ethan had given him and throw them out, or maybe tear them into such tiny pieces that they could never be put together again, and then flush them down a toilet. But instead he unfolded them, apprehensively because he didn't know what he would find, and with a scowl on his face because he was sure whatever he did find would only upset him more. A petty, vicious part of him wanted to see Iris, want to go to prom? scrawled messily on them, with 2 boxes drawn for her to check off, one for yes and one for no. But what he found instead was something that could only be described as a love letter. Ethan wasn't a poet. From what Barry read he had serious doubts about whether Ethan was even moderately literate, and he told himself that he didn't think that just because of some mean, jealous part of him that immediately disliked any boy Iris spoke warmly of.

Ethan's letter to Iris had spelling mistakes, and the grammar he used made it difficult to read, and his handwriting was large, like he hadn't yet learned how to write on college ruled paper, but the sentiments and thoughts in it were clear. Ethan wanted to tell Iris that she was funny and beautiful, and that he was glad to have met her. Ethan wanted to tell Iris that in the last few weeks since knowing her, she'd made high school bearable for him, when he hadn't even realized that it was a burden weighing him down. Ethan wanted to tell Iris that she was one of the best things to have happened to him in a while, and he would be honored that she was going to prom with him.

Reading Ethan's letter, Barry felt as though his chest were bruising. He rubbed himself there, the feeling hit him with such clarity. What struck him about Ethan's letter, other than how sincere it was, was that he knew exactly what Ethan meant when he wrote that Iris was easy to talk to, and that she made him feel like it was ok to be who he was, even though when other people looked at him they saw only what they wanted. He recognized something in Ethan's letter. He recognized himself. He recognized a shade of the feelings he had for Iris.

Barry read Ethan's letter three times before he folded it up and slipped it into his pocket. With each reading, the scowl on his face lessened, and the immediate antipathy he'd felt when Ethan had told him he'd be going to prom with Iris was replaced with something almost kindly. Because how could Barry hate someone who cared about Iris the way Ethan seemed to? He had to laugh, because of course Iris would do this. Of course she'd get him to look at someone who was so different from him, someone who could easily be dressed up in all the stereotypes of the bullies who had mocked him and shoved him in lockers, and make him see someone who wasn't very much unlike himself. She was always doing that, making people come together. It was one of his favorite things about her. Ethan probably liked that about her too.

* * *

That afternoon Barry stayed late at school in the library so he wouldn't have to take the bus with Iris. He waited until he knew that she was on it and then texted her to tell her to go home without him. He didn't know how to face her, and he wasn't sure if he even wanted to see her. He was rarely ever mad at her; in fact he couldn't remember one instance in which her ever had been, but ever since realizing just how much he liked her, and understanding why he liked the look of the back of her neck so much whenever she wore her hair up, his feelings would sometimes get all twisted up inside of him. Sometimes it wasn't as easy for him to be with Iris as it had always been, because sometimes he wanted her to kiss him. Sometimes he wanted to hold her hand and lace his fingers with hers. And sometimes he didn't want to go home with her at all, but wanted to walk her home and leave her at the door, maybe with a kiss, and then wait on the sidewalk to see her light in her room go on to make sure she was in there safe. Sometimes he wanted to be able to walk to some home he didn't share with Iris, so he could think about her and how much he liked her without being scared that she'd walk by him and see what he was thinking written all over his face.

When Barry did come home that day Iris was sitting at the kitchen table with her calculus textbook open and sheets of loose leaf paper spread out in front of her, a scowl on her face. She'd could have taken Algebra II this year and finished up her math requirements, but Barry had encouraged her to take pre-calc because he'd never known her not to challenge herself. She'd grown a habit of looking up from her homework and declaring dramatically, "You did this to me." He'd make funny faces at her until she stopped glaring. She was in what she called her "home tights," with an oversized sweatshirt on over them, and the thick socks she liked to wear cause her feet were always cold bunched up around her ankles. She'd been trying out different hairstyles lately, and right then she had her hair in these long, thick twists that she had cascading down over one shoulder. She liked to run her fingers through them to straighten them out. When Barry closed the door behind him she looked up from her work and smiled at him.

"Barry, you're home!" she cried, her smile growing wider.

Usually Barry would make his way over to her, drop his backpack on the floor, and pull out a chair opposite her. They'd be there at the table for one, two, three hours, just talking about their day and their homework, and since Joe wasn't coming home till late they'd play-argue over what to order, even though Barry always went with what Iris wanted. But instead of joining her Barry made his way to the stairs. He nodded at her as he passed by, and ignored the sinking feeling in his gut when she frowned at him. Barry almost sprinted up the steps, but he heard Iris scrape her chair back and follow him. He had to stop when she called out her pet name for him.

"Bare?" she asked behind him. "Hey, is something wrong?"

They were in the upstairs corridor now, and Barry was facing away from her. He felt the touch of her hand on his shoulder, and then she came around to face him. "Bare? What happened?"

Barry didn't look at her. He kept his head bent and bit his lip. She probably thought that someone at school had said something about his parents and wanted to comfort him. Thinking that made the twisted up feeling inside of him denser. He knew that she liked someone else, Ethan had told him as much. But sometimes he thought maybe Iris could like him, that maybe she did. It wasn't that he felt that only someone who liked him like that would want to comfort him; it was just that sometimes Iris treated him with such care and such tenderness that he thought she just had to feel what he felt. Like the smile she'd given him earlier; was it selfish of him to think that was a smile she saved for him, was it wrong for him to be happy that he could make her smile like that? He knew that Iris liked someone else, but he could have kissed her right then. He wanted to. He wasn't going to do it, he was going to tell her that nothing had happened and that she shouldn't worry, but before he could work up the nerve to speak, Iris took a step up close to him and hugged him. She slipped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his chest. She had her eyes closed.

"Hey," she said, quietly, almost in a whisper. Another greeting. She did that with him sometimes, started over with something easy when she thought that maybe he had too much to say.

"I missed you today."

He'd missed her, too. He'd avoided her all day, not once stopping by her locker, and skipping lunch with her with an excuse about having to see his guidance counselor. All Barry could answer was a noncommittal "Mmm" from somewhere in his throat. But, tentatively, because Iris was so warm against him, and because her arms around him were so familiar, and because he wanted something to blunt the edge of the aching he had, he brought one arm around her shoulders. She was so much smaller than him, when for the longest time she'd been taller and bigger. He gave her just one quick squeeze and then shifted away from her, pulling out of her embrace.

"I, uh, have a lot of homework. It'll probably take me all night, so I should really get to it."

"Oh," Iris said, "Oh, ok." Her voice was still quiet, but it was of a different kind, now. She sounded disappointed. Barry kept his head bent as he went to his room. He almost never closed his door, just in the mornings when he was getting dressed and at night when he switched into his sweats and sometimes when he'd just come from visiting his father, but he did now.

* * *

Barry lay in his bed that night staring at his ceiling. Iris had stopped by his room a little earlier to say goodnight, and she'd lingered by his door as if she'd had something she'd wanted to say. He hadn't asked her though, just kept pretending the notebook in front of him was absorbing all of his attention, when really what he'd been thinking was that he wished Ethan Mariano had never come up to him, so that he could have spent his afternoon teasing Iris about all the things she did to distract herself from actually doing her calc homework. She'd been standing right there in front of him, in his room, and he was missing her. Before leaving she'd asked, "Are you mad at me?" and he'd said, "No, I'm just busy, is all." He'd never lied to Iris before. It felt awful. It unnerved him to see how easily he could do it, that he still did it even though he hated it. But she'd lied to him too, hadn't she? She was going to prom with Ethan, was probably even maybe dating him, and hadn't told him.

Ethan was hardly the first person to like Iris, though he was the first boy Barry felt anything other than a deep and fixed dislike towards. He didn't know if it was maybe because he'd seen for himself firsthand evidence of how much Ethan liked Iris, but something felt different about him, somehow, about him and Iris together. Iris hadn't even told Barry about him, and she told him about all the boys she went on dates with. She'd never kept anything from him before, he didn't think. So if she hadn't told him about Ethan…it must mean that it was something she couldn't, or didn't want to, share with him. Iris had had boyfriends before, but it had never changed anything about their relationship. She would go out with a boy over the weekend, and then she'd come home and flop down on his bed and complain to him about how the boy didn't like ketchup on his burgers, or how he'd inadvertently made fun of one of her favorite movies. She hadn't done that with Ethan. So maybe they were serious. She was going to prom with him. She'd be getting a dress, and getting her hair done, maybe even wearing it up, swept back from her collarbone and her shoulders and her neck, in that way that always made him flush. Joe would be taking pictures, ones that would probably end up on the mantelpiece. And he'd have to watch it all. He wanted to cry. But in the dark of his bedroom Barry could be more truthful with himself than he had been at school, surrounded by his schoolmates, and earlier, when he'd been facing Iris. More than that she was going to prom with someone who wasn't him, more than the prospect of her seriously dating another boy even, what unsettled him was that she hadn't told him. It made him wonder if maybe something was happening to them that he'd somehow missed, if maybe they were growing apart, and he was the only one who hadn't realized it.

Barry still had Ethan's letter in the pocket of his jeans, which he'd thrown over the back of his desk chair. He wondered how many letters like that Iris had gotten. He'd gotten lots of letters from her. One summer he'd gone away to a space camp that he'd been saving all year for, but which Joe had ended up paying for anyway, and she'd written him a letter every day, collected them throughout the week and sent them to him at the end of it. He still had them, tied up in little bundles with string. He had Valentines from her dating back to when they'd been in the first grade together and their teacher had made them exchange cards. Iris hadn't picked his name out of the hat their teacher had passed around the room, but she'd written him one anyway. They'd kept exchanging Valentine's cards right up until that very year, each time making them sappier and sillier, trying to one up one another to see who could make the other laugh the hardest. He had notes from her, too. Post-its left on the fridge, doodles she made in his notebook when he lent it to her so she could study, the notes she would write in the margins of the essays he asked her to look over. When he read a book he thought Iris would like, she sometimes gave it back to him with her favorite sentences in it underlined. He didn't think Iris had noticed it, but he kept all his books that she'd written in on a special shelf on his bookcase, just because he felt like they'd become little gifts from her.

Barry thought all of this, and he wondered at his behavior. Was this who he was? Was this who he wanted to be to Iris? Someone who hurt her because he was jealous, who lied and pushed her away the moment she found someone who genuinely liked her? He thought of Ethan's letter, which he'd almost committed to memory now; he thought of how Ethan looked exactly like the kind of guy Iris usually went for; and he thought of how much he liked to make Iris happy. It was one of the things he wanted most in the world, for Iris to be happy, and it was one of the things that wasn't impossible, that wasn't outside of his ability to make happen.

Barry wrote Iris a love letter that night. He sat cross-legged on his bed to write it, with the reading glasses he only wore at home on, in the notebook she'd gotten him the month before because it had outlines of microscopes and little amoeba printed on the paper. He scribbled the words down as they came to him, not thinking, not choosing them so they sounded right, only trusting that when he got out what was in him, he could look at it and not feel abashed. When he was finished he had something that came close to explaining how he felt about her, though he knew words could only ever be approximate:

"Dear Iris,

I love you.

I think I've loved you for a long time. I think maybe what I feel for you, this love, is one of the things I've felt longest in my life. I can't remember not loving you. I don't know how not to. And I don't want to know what it's like not to. I think maybe I know what love like this is because of you, because it's you. Do you remember the night Joe brought me here, brought me home? It should have been one of the worst nights of my life, but it wasn't. Because you were there. Because you held your hand out to me, like you always do, and you listened to me, like you always do, and you didn't laugh at me when I told you that some guy in a yellow mask killed my mom. I didn't start loving you that night, I've loved you since even before then, but you were so kind, you were so good, and for the first time since I'd seen that man in yellow I felt something other than scared and angry and lost. I felt calm. I felt hope. You told me you believed me, and it made all the people who'd called me a liar not matter. I wasn't a liar because you believed me. I wasn't just some scared kid making stuff up because you believed me. I wish I had the words to tell you what you mean to me, but all I can say is I love you. All I can say is I want to be for you what you've been for me. I want to be good to you. Is that all right? I want you to know you can tell me anything. If you're sad, or if you're hurt, or if you're angry, you can tell me. I'm telling you all this, but you don't have to do anything with it. I don't want you to feel burdened by it. I just want you to know. I promise it doesn't change anything, I promise I'll still be the same Barry you've always known, and if it makes you feel weird, or if it upsets you, please just ignore it. If you'll let me, I can go on loving you like this, like I always have, quietly, endlessly, and with everything in me, because that's what you deserve.

Your best friend,

Barry"

Barry stared at his letter for a long while after he finished writing it. He'd learned something about being honest when he was younger, that sometimes, when you were too honest, it set you apart from others in ways that could hurt you. He knew Iris would never hurt him, but he felt so vulnerable, like he was standing at the edge of something, and even the slightest of breezes could topple him over. Carefully, he crossed it all out, line by line. He ripped the paper out of his notebook, crumpled it up, and threw it at his waste paper basket, where it fell in cleanly. Then, on a new sheet of paper, he wrote another letter. It was shorter and simpler than the one he'd thrown out. He tried to cleave it as close to Ethan's letter as he could, but knowing who would read it, knowing he was more of a coward than he wanted to admit, he wrote it to carry some of the taste of the confession he had lingering on his tongue. He wasn't telling Iris the secret he had, he wasn't telling her what she meant to him. But writing Ethan's letter eased something in Barry. Ethan had signed his letter with "Love." Barry allowed himself one little act of selfishness. He signed it "Sincerely," then added Ethan's name.

* * *

The next morning Barry woke up early and went to the kitchen, where he gathered up all the ingredients he needed to make his special blueberry muffins. It wasn't his recipe, really. It was his mother's. When she was alive, she'd bake him the muffins so he could have one for his morning snack at school, and she would always give him an extra one to give to Iris. The year before Iris had presented the recipe to him as a present for his birthday. She'd remembered how the muffins tasted, and she'd spent months experimenting, until she'd come up with something close to what his mother had made for him.

When Iris came down the stairs, she was cautious around him. Her smile was small, and instead of joining him at the counter, she grabbed the box of Frosted Mini-Wheats from the cabinet and sat at the kitchen table. She was avoiding him. Maybe she thought that was what he wanted. It made him feel how callous he had been with her the day before, and he promised himself he'd never make it so that Iris was like that with him again.

Barry knew he had to speak first. He took a breath, and then he said, shyly, an awkward hand at the back of his neck, "Hey."

"Hi," Iris said. She popped a frosted square into her mouth and gave him a quick look from beneath her lashes.

"I made muffins, if you want any."

"Oh?"

"They're your favorite, right?"

Iris shrugged. "They're ok."

Barry nodded. He took another breath, squared his shoulders, then took the tray of muffins and brought it over to the table. "I'm sorry about yesterday," he said, "I was being a jerk."

Iris was quiet for a moment, and then she finally looked him in the eye. "Yes, you were." And she smiled. A warmth spread over Barry at the sight of it, and he grinned back at her, slipped into the seat next to her, eagerly pushed the tray towards her. "Go ahead, have one. I made them for you."

"Thank you," Iris said, and this time she was the one who sounded shy. She reached for the tray but stopped short.

"Barry."

"Yeah?"

"Did you grease the cups?"

"Grease the—oh. Shit."

Iris giggled. He hung his head.

"Shit, I'm sorry Iris. I really thought I hadn't forgotten anything."

"It's all right, Bare," and, still laughing, Iris got up, got two forks from the dishwasher, and handed one over to him. Together, they each dug into a muffin, straight from the pan.

"So how'd that calc homework go?" Barry asked. Iris just scrunched her nose at him and took a generous bite off her fork. "I can look over it for you, if you want," Barry said.

"Really?"

Barry nodded.

"You don't have to, you know."

"I know. But I want to."

Iris looked at him for a long moment, then, and her gaze was so searching that Barry had to duck his head. "Barry," she said, and he tried not to think that she had a special way of saying it, that his name never seemed to sound like that, so soft and inviting, when anyone else said it, "Was something wrong?"

He didn't have to ask her what she meant. Barry thought about the letter she'd be getting, maybe later that day or tomorrow, and he thought about the letter he'd thrown away. He gave her a smile and said, "Nah. I was just being moody."

That day Barry couldn't have lunch with Iris because he really did have to meet with his guidance counselor. But he did sit next to her on the bus ride to school, and he did walk her to her locker before homeroom. He settled into the comfort and the delight of her friendship, and he tried not to be too giddy with the knowledge that no matter what, be it crushes or prom nights or any secrets he might have, they would always be the very best of friends.

* * *

"…Barry?"

"Hmm?"

"Barry?"

"What is it?"

He and Iris were in their new attic, taking a break from moving up all the boxes they'd left scattered about the house since their move. It was really their old attic, where he and Iris used to crouch amidst old furniture her mother had bought with Joe, shining flashlights into their own faces while trying to scare each other with ghost stories. The West home, now officially the West-Allen home, had been in Iris's name for years, but they'd only moved in a few months before. Joe had recently moved further out from the city, into the suburbs where it was quieter and he could enjoy his retirement in a smaller place that didn't require so much upkeep. Dawn and Don were with him for a weekend visit, and Iris, in a sudden burst of productivity, had decided it was the perfect opportunity for them to finally finish unpacking. Barry wasn't using his speed; he liked to spend this kind of time with Iris, their homemaking time, he liked to savor every second of it. Iris had her back propped up against a wall with her legs stretched out in front of her, and Barry lay with his head in her lap. He had his eyes closed and was enjoying the play of her fingers in his hair.

"Babe, what is this?"

Barry opened his eyes to see what Iris was talking about. She was holding a crumpled piece of paper with sharp creases down its middle in her hand, which she'd taken out of the battered old box that was next to her. Barry shrugged.

"I don't know. What's it say?"

Iris didn't answer him. Instead she peered at the paper intently, her eyes wide. Barry turned his head to the side to get a better look, and that's when he noticed that the paper she held had faint little illustrations on it, little microscopes and amoeba.

"Hey!" he cried. But before he could snatch it out of her hand she held it high over her head, out of his reach. Which was silly, because he was taller than her by almost a foot. He sat up to grab it, but Iris had a mischievous look on her face, and the moment he was off her lap she sprang up and darted away from him. Barry could have used his speed, but he didn't.

"Iris," he said warningly.

"Bar-ry," she mimicked him.

"That's mine," he told her.

"How can it be yours? It's addressed to me. See, right here, it says 'Dear Iris'!"

He thought for a moment that she might continue on to read it out loud, but she didn't. Instead she trailed her fingers down the surface of that old love letter, a fond smile on her face, and then folded it up again along the same lines he had, all those years ago. She tucked it into her back pocket.

Iris took his hand and pulled him to the very middle of the attic floor, where they had more space to move. She pressed herself up against him, so he could feel her warmth all along his front. They were half hugging, half dancing to the quiet that surrounded them.

"When did you write that?" Iris asked.

"Mmmm," Barry said, trying to remember. It had been so long ago. "When we were in high school, I think."

"Why didn't you ever give it to me?"

Barry didn't answer. He remembered the night he had written it, how furiously it had come out of him. He had a job now, a wife, children, and, ironically, monthly car payments, because his speed couldn't carry his family around for a summer road trip. But he still tried to retain that earnestness he'd had when he was young. He remembered how, the morning after, the morning he'd apologized to Iris, he'd fished the letter out of the trash, smoothed it out, and tucked it into the pages of the notebook Iris had gifted him.

"I wish you had," Iris said, "It would have been nice to have it while you were gone."

"I came back," Barry said, "I'm here now."

"I know." Iris tightened her arms around him.

She felt very delicate under his hands. She kept one hand at the nape of his neck, where she stroked him gently with her fingers. They kissed there in their home, with the afternoon light streaming in through the window, making all the dust motes in the air look like fairy dust. Iris gave him small, pretty little kisses that he pulled back from so he could gaze at her, and open-mouthed, languorous, wonderfully pouty kisses that left him lightheaded and grinning.

"I memorized that letter, you know," he whispered in her ear, between her kisses.

"You did not," Iris said, and her voice was teasing.

"Oh yes I did," Barry said, and he wasn't even embarrassed at how proud he sounded. In the 10 years since they'd been married, he'd already told Iris everything that he'd written in that letter, back when he was just a teenager and didn't yet know how to tell her what he felt. But right then, holding her tight and luxuriating in a life spent with her, he recited his letter, word for word.


End file.
